There are various types of amusement games in which the player attempts to direct a ball towards various targets. One example of such an amusement game is a pinball machine. Depending on which of the targets are contacted, the player is awarded points with the goal of the pinball game being to accumulate the higher amount of points.
A variation of a typical pinball games involves using an edible product such as a gumball or jawbreaker to play the game. When the game is completed, the product is dispensed to the player. Other related games use rubber balls or prize-containing spheres that are dispensed once the game is completed. More specifically, these types of devices generally dispense the product from a storage container to a playing surface, and after the game is completed, the product is routed from the playing surface to the user. These types of devices are described in, for example, Dickerson, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,722,656 and 5,988,637, and Norton U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,868, the disclosures of which are all hereby incorporated by reference herein. However, these types of devices cannot dispense two different products, such as, for example, a product to the user and a game piece to a playing surface, using a single actuator.
Gumball dispensing machines have also been known for some time. In response to a person inserting a coin and turning a handle, a rotatable plate inside of the gumball dispensing machine is indexed a selected amount to cause a gumball to be dispensed. Such rotatable plates are disclosed in Rosenberg, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,937,314 and Sutcliffe, U.S. Pat. No. 6,536,623, the disclosure of which are both hereby incorporated by reference herein. Again, these plates are not suitable for dispensing multiple types of products from one or more storage regions with a single actuator.
It would be desirable to provide a dispensing mechanism that could address the above-mentioned limitations.